As I said before, I am new to this “debate”. I am neither a gun control advocate or apostate so I don’t have any emotional baggage to bring to this discussion other than my fear of crazy people, especially those whose symptoms include the need to arm themselves in public. I do think that those who carry guns deserve our fear, loathing, and social marginalization, regardless of what they think their motives are for doing so, predator or prey. Anyone who does not share the gun carriers fantasy is threatened.

The most obvious problem is that it announces to violent criminals it’s a zone in which they can more safely operate as predators.

I thought that was your reasoning….doesn’t that come across as just a little facile? It’s clear part of the gun carriers fantasy that some “predators” would avoid certain venues simply because of their fear of an armed vigilante. It’s just ridiculous. Because we live in a more or less civil society, where only the marginal few crazy people carry weapons, there are any number of places containing gatherings of “innocents” for the predator…he doesn’t really need signs pointing to the innocent and unarmed.

But you’re right that the effect is negligible and such signs don’t actually accomplish anything functional at all.

What’s not functional about signage that expresses the law? If there are laws against carrying weapons into certain places, I don’t see any point in keep that fact a secret. I would assume that such a law would carry a penalty to serve as a deterrent and advertising that fact would be a good idea. I don’t see that arming bank tellers, doctors, nurses, teachers, museum curators, pastors, etc. is going to do anything to quell gun violence.

The point was that in my experience very few people consider this issue from a reasonable perspective. They utterly fail to appreciate the realities of violence. Instead they just presume all violence must inherently be offensive, or that using a potentially lethal weapon is (and guns are far less lethal than the unwashed usually think). They forget about the victims of violence—the despised, marginalized targets of ridicule and sometimes violence, sometimes mortal violence. A great many women can appreciate this, as can many ethnic minorities, homosexuals. There are also those just targeted as easy marks for predation. Women again, also many minorities, but more so the elderly.

Well, I don’t know about your experience with others, but it’s difficult to see how you could suggest this about anyone. It simply does not follow that a concern over gun violence against victims of whatever creed or category, is necessarily mitigated by arming the victims. Should we hand grandma a handgun as we take away her drivers license?
Does any of your deeply researched data indicate that people who carry weapons have any impact on quelling violence? Has anyone ever actually successfully acted out their John Wayne scenarios? How often has the gun nut who thought he was wearing the white hat turned out to be wearing the black hat after he used his gun.

The “no one needs a gun [i.e. a serious form of self-defense from people who may very well kill you and/or yours]” mindset is usually a mentality bred from convenience, which is good for the most part. It means the people who hold it more than likely haven’t been put into the situation of true fight or flight (though sometimes the trauma of a particularly nasty violent event also causes this same mindset). They usually haven’t actually had to face someone who may very well kill them in the next moment if they don’t do something to prevent it. It’s good, but it tends to hamper understanding, and it often seems to create a very strong emotional undercurrent when such issues arise.

Now you’re suggesting that because because I think that those who carry guns are mentally ill, I am actually a killer in disguise. By convenience, I suppose you mean the convenience of not being so paranoid so as to have to carry weapons to feel secure. Clinically speaking, I do want to express concern over those whose suffer from a post traumatic stress problem. I suppose that carrying a gun is a kind of pacifier that makes them feel safer. But if you’re in an unsafe situation, carrying the gun doesn’t make it any safer. You just guaranty that a gun will be brought into an already bad situation. And of course using it except in clear cases not only of self defense but where you are in clear mortal danger, wins you the black hat, regardless of what you thought, (or fantasized), you were up against. Successfully using the gun of course would not end the post event trauma that an innocent person would undergo after having killed someone, whether it was deserved or not.

And why do you think that’s different for the police ... or do you? What makes that a special situation in terms of the way you’re thinking about people who carry weaponry? In other words, what is it about guns that makes people with them inherently threatening, whereas it makes the police able to better handle violent criminals? Why do guns help police who face violent people, but not civilians? You seem to be suggesting the weapon has some magical property, and that someone who’s non-violent might suddenly become so if armed.

The police issue is clear. They are trained and licensed to enforce laws, including those against gun violence and, in this country, they carry weapons to do so. They are not vigilantes, predator or prey. They regularly intervene in violent conflict to support the law on behalf of the innocent. Moreover they are trained to professionally deal with not only guns but with violent people. At least that’s the theory. I think that your average gun carrier does it just because they are a gun nut.

I don’t think that guns make people violent, I think that those obsessed with violence seek guns, defensively or offensively, with or without reason. I think that it’s healthier to not be obsessed or to have any reason to be so.
What makes a gun “magical” and different from other “potentially fatal weaponry” is the amount of directed energy in the cartridge that can be released without regard to circumstances. Pulling a trigger takes no training or skill and doesn’t even take intent as the number of gun “accidents”, shows. Two year olds can pull triggers just as easily as a trained cop. To successfully use a gun in a dangerous situation requires skill, training and intent, just as in martial arts, something that granny may have difficulty with. The successful use of a gun requires at the minimum, this process called “aim”. The unsuccessful use of a gun could guaranty the victims death.
Really to compare a gun with martial arts or just about any other weapon is just silly. Is it not a gun that one brings to a knife fight? The gun is the great equalizer. We are more afraid of the two year old with his finger on the trigger…right?

I’d say that’s true of any potentially fatal weaponry in general, which include hands and feet (do you also oppose martial arts training, or maybe just the more offensively oriented martial arts, like jujitsu and mui tai), but if you know many of these people and if you look into the research critically you’ll find the potential violence is mostly just theoretical, unless someone else introduces a weapon, gun or otherwise, and forces them into a situation in which they have to respond with resistant force or trust the good will of someone who is demonstrating they’re willing to prey on their fellow humans by threatening their lives.

I think that it must be the lethality of the gun that makes it the weapon of choice among those drawn to violence. After all we don’t see these debates over other, more clearly defensive measures such as bear spray and tasers and the like. I could see where both of these more defensive weapons might be more effective wrt urban violence and not expose the user to all the potential liability of a gun. I would expect that those who are truly afraid and concerned with defense, and not paranoid and concerned with offense, would find these kinds of weapons to be the ones of first choice.

The guns and the gun carriers find each other for all the same reasons. Again, you more easily divide the group of gun carriers into good guys and bad guys. If you’re obsessed enough to carry a gun, you’re obsessed enough to fear, whether it’s legal or not.

The ants are my friends, they’re blowing in the wind, the ants are blowing in the wind.

As I said before, I am new to this “debate”. I am neither a gun control advocate or apostate so I don’t have any emotional baggage to bring to this discussion other than my fear of crazy people ...

Much you’ve posted pretty strongly indicates the contrary, and you clearly come into the discussion as a neophyte yet still bring with you clearly strong opinions that have zero sound epistemology.

eucaryote - 17 July 2009 06:08 PM

I thought that was your reasoning….doesn’t that come across as just a little facile? It’s clear part of the gun carriers fantasy that some “predators” would avoid certain venues simply because of their fear of an armed vigilante.

Do you really think violent criminals aren’t effected by the threat that their targets might be armed!? Why would guns be scary to innocent people but not to criminals!? It’s obvious on the face of it that violent criminals would be deterred by the threat of an armed target, and more so regarding a population in which that risk is greater. In surveys of convicted felons in prison, 42% say they’ve encountered armed resistance from their target, 38% said they were scared off, shot at, captured or wounded by the intended victim. 43% reported they’d opted not to commit a crime because they believed the target was armed (Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, 1986). They’re significantly more afraid of the sound of someone racking a pump shotgun (feeding a round) than they are the sound of large dogs growling or barking, by the way (but dogs are an excellent invasion robbery deterrent).

eucaryote - 17 July 2009 06:08 PM

It’s just ridiculous. Because we live in a more or less civil society, where only the marginal few crazy people carry weapons, there are any number of places containing gatherings of “innocents” for the predator…he doesn’t really need signs pointing to the innocent and unarmed.

You are aware, I trust, that innocent people are violently assaulted in the US, and that shootings have in fact happened in schools and other “gun free zones”, no? Are you aware that the potential stakes are debilitating injury or even death if you’re violently assaulted? Given the stakes it’s quite reasonable to take the small potential of such an event seriously, just like it’s not only wise to keep a first aid and a fire extinguisher at the ready, but foolish not to. Guns are emergency equipment for violence just as first aid kits are emergency equipment for injury and illness, and fire extinguishers are emergency equipment for fires.

eucaryote - 17 July 2009 06:08 PM

But you’re right that the effect is negligible and such signs don’t actually accomplish anything functional at all.

What’s not functional about signage that expresses the law?

“Most of us know better than to bring a gun into an airport, or into any public place. Banks and government buildings have long been gun free zones.” Do you really think anyone in today’s US (or most of the Western World for that matter) actually needs a sign to tell them what a given school’s policy is on guns? If not, then why the signs? Do we need signs to tell us not to set up campfires on school campuses, not to barbecue on playgrounds or to set up fruit stands on school campuses, not to bring the guys out to play basketball in the school gym during school hours? Do you think there’s an actual function to these signs other than to promote the dogma? If so, is it just to convey the law? Why this law rather than others?

Here was the point again:
They serve no more purpose than the equivalent of dogma bumper stickers. They can make people feel better, perhaps, but based upon an illusion, which is the problem—the same mentality brings us larger scale manifestations, like the TSA. This is a form of ignorance and dogmatism, just as with dogma bumper stickers.

eucaryote - 17 July 2009 06:08 PM

If there are laws against carrying weapons into certain places, I don’t see any point in keep that fact a secret.

Again, if you’re including someone else in this “discussion” you need to let me know instead of apparently expecting me to answer their bad arguments. Or are you arguing laws not posted on signs are therefore being kept secret?

eucaryote - 17 July 2009 06:08 PM

I would assume that such a law would carry a penalty to serve as a deterrent and advertising that fact would be a good idea. I don’t see that arming bank tellers, doctors, nurses, teachers, museum curators, pastors, etc. is going to do anything to quell gun violence.

Ever noticed many banks have armed security guards? Every wondered why the police carry guns? Do you think the guns they’re armed with make them more violent (or in the case of the police “make them more violent”), or do you think maybe they can find some way to use them defensively to prevent violence (or at least limit it to the perpetrators)?

eucaryote - 17 July 2009 06:08 PM

Well, I don’t know about your experience with others, but it’s difficult to see how you could suggest this about anyone. It simply does not follow that a concern over gun violence against victims of whatever creed or category, is necessarily mitigated by arming the victims.

“Necessarily?”

It’s actually intuitively quite obvious that violence of all sorts is mitigated by armed targets of violent criminals. If you don’t presume guns have some sort of mystical influence on their wielders making them more prone toward violence (I’ve never felt the slightest urge to shoot anyone, in spite of having spent many hours training at ranges in the military and with police trainers), it’s pretty easy to see that the violent perpetrators (who are the problem) are hampered when they encounter armed victims (or would be victims in many cases). I’m not sure why this is such a difficult concept for so many people.

eucaryote - 17 July 2009 06:08 PM

Should we hand grandma a handgun as we take away her drivers license?

Huh?

eucaryote - 17 July 2009 06:08 PM

Does any of your deeply researched data indicate that people who carry weapons have any impact on quelling violence?

Actually the debate amongst criminologists back when I was doing my research was over whether defensive gun use (DGU) is from roughly 2 to as high as 5 times as frequent as are gun crimes. The data show DGUs result in reductions in assaults and robbery victim injuries, and in robbery completions, and that these crimes are mitigated far more by DGUs than any other deterrent or defensive measure—particularly true of assaults on women, who unfortunately carry far less frequently than those of us who are far less likely to find ourselves the targets of violent criminals (Lawrence Southwick “Self-defense with guns: The consequences.” Journal of Criminal Justice, Vol.28, Issue 5, 351-370, September-October 2000; Philip J. Cook, “The relationship between victim resistance and injury in noncommercial robbery.” Journal of Legal Studies, 15:405-416 - and others).

eucaryote - 17 July 2009 06:08 PM

Has anyone ever actually successfully acted out their John Wayne scenarios?

No John Wayne scenarios as I’m aware, but many citizens mange to use guns to prevent violence from being visited upon them or to prevent violent perpetrators from completing their assaults on them (and sometimes others).

eucaryote - 17 July 2009 06:08 PM

How often has the gun nut who thought he was wearing the white hat turned out to be wearing the black hat after he used his gun.

Dunno about gun nuts in particular, but it’s very rare for a concealed weapon carry permit holder to have his or her permit revoked—it’s 0.03% for permits that have been revoked specifically for gun-related violations or crimes (Gary Kleck, Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control, 1997, pgs 369-370).

eucaryote - 17 July 2009 06:08 PM

The “no one needs a gun [i.e. a serious form of self-defense from people who may very well kill you and/or yours]” mindset is usually a mentality bred from convenience, which is good for the most part. It means the people who hold it more than likely haven’t been put into the situation of true fight or flight (though sometimes the trauma of a particularly nasty violent event also causes this same mindset). They usually haven’t actually had to face someone who may very well kill them in the next moment if they don’t do something to prevent it. It’s good, but it tends to hamper understanding, and it often seems to create a very strong emotional undercurrent when such issues arise.

Now you’re suggesting that because because I think that those who carry guns are mentally ill, I am actually a killer in disguise.

Who ... wha ... huh!?

eucaryote - 17 July 2009 06:08 PM

By convenience, I suppose you mean the convenience of not being so paranoid so as to have to carry weapons to feel secure.

The data show that, if anything, gun owners are less fearful than non-gun owners (but it’s a statistically insignificant difference). You’re presuming a mentality that doesn’t hold up to reality any better than if you tried to argue you must be pathologically afraid of being hurt if you keep a first aid kit handy, or you’re crazy paranoid about your house burning down if you maintain a fire extinguisher or a fire suppression system of some sort. The problem is that you are afraid of guns, not any fear on gun owners’ part.

eucaryote - 17 July 2009 06:08 PM

But if you’re in an unsafe situation, carrying the gun doesn’t make it any safer. You just guaranty that a gun will be brought into an already bad situation.

You base this upon what tactical training and/or experience, and/or what research?

eucaryote - 17 July 2009 06:08 PM

And of course using it except in clear cases not only of self defense but where you are in clear mortal danger, wins you the black hat, regardless of what you thought, (or fantasized), you were up against.

Just as I pointed out earlier. Yes. But do you think it’s often clear whether you’re in potential mortal danger, or only in danger of some lesser degree of injury at the hands of a violent predator? Do you think it a good idea to trust someone who is violently violating the social contract not to seriously harm you while robbing or raping you (or whatever)? Do you think society is better served by compliance or resistance? Do you know anything about the data regarding outcomes of resistance by unarmed vs armed victims? Care to take a guess?

eucaryote - 17 July 2009 06:08 PM

Successfully using the gun of course would not end the post event trauma that an innocent person would undergo after having killed someone, whether it was deserved or not.

Are you assuming shot = killed? And why do you think the gun will magically cause PTSD? Why do you present this as if PTSD wouldn’t be an issue after being violently assaulted, unless you had a gun? Also, it would almost certainly be better to suffer from PTSD than to be dead, than to suffer from PTSD and a debilitating injury, than to suffer from PTSD and sport a serious scar, etc. It would also benefit society far more for a law abiding citizen to kill or seriously wound a violent predator, or at least for such a predator to have to face resistance rather than to freely commit violent crime (this is another aspect of guns and violence and civil society most anti-gun types fail to consider).

I’ll leave it at that for now, and I’ll try to get to the rest later ... I suppose.

I’d like to recommend two books to those interested in understanding this issue and the nature of the pertinent research. Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control by Gary Kleck (already mentioned, with links), and Under the Gun: Weapons, Crime and Violence in America by James Wright, Peter H. Rossi and Kathleen Daly. Under the Gun is all about criticism and analysis of the available research, which is perhaps the most enlightening way to start forming an understanding of the issues. Targeting Guns includes an excellent overview and lesson on criticizing criminological/sociological research. This is a particularly vital skill in the area of guns and violence (as it is in the areas of drugs and crime, and religion).

Kleck is a criminologist and Wright, Rossi and Daly are sociologists. This is important because a lot of research on guns and violence is done by people in inappropriate fields (notoriously medicine and epidemiology), and it’s generally very shoddy, highly politicized and often results-oriented (setting up research instruments seeking a given result). If you haven’t already made up your mind these books will be to guns and violence as Sagan, Dawkins, Dennett and Harris are to religion and society.

And I’d really appreciate not having to reinvent the wheel over and over and over while being mobbed by angry villagers ... again. If you’re willing to put in the effort to argue a position, I would hope you’d have been willing to put in the effort to come up with that position responsibly, and that you’d be open to the data and to argumentation.

Byron

“We say, ‘Love your brother…’ We don’t say it really, but… Well we don’t literally say it. We don’t really, literally mean it. No, we don’t believe it either, but… But that message should be clear.”—David St. Hubbins

As I said before, I am new to this “debate”. I am neither a gun control advocate or apostate so I don’t have any emotional baggage to bring to this discussion other than my fear of crazy people ...

Much you’ve posted pretty strongly indicates the contrary, and you clearly come into the discussion as a neophyte yet still bring with you clearly strong opinions that have zero sound epistemology.

Well, I don’t know what those opinions are that you speak of. I think my reasoning is simple and sound and not based on statistics. Clearly you are the one who apparently has been a believer and out again….I never really thought that apostates were to be trusted to know what they think or believe. For the record, I don’t think that gun control is a panacea for a sick society either.

It’s been my judgment not to trust those who are fascinated with guns and gun violence. These would be people who are so paranoid that they feel that they must carry weapons as they go about their daily lives. I personally don’t know anyone like that, do you? Wouldn’t a person have to reasonably expect to have to use such a firearm to bother to carry it with them?

You suggested that elderly people were in a group likely to be victims of gun violence. I suggested that it takes some skill and acumen to successfully use a gun defensively. I implied that granny, who can no longer drive, might lack such skill and acumen…..as might many innocent people who won’t take the time to sacrifice their sanity to learn martial arts, gun fighting etc. Apparently this point was too subtly expressed, it went right over your head. The point is that carrying a gun does not guaranty security any better than other methods might, and, a gun can be turned against you. You may be the one to provide the lethal force to your attacker, how nice and rational. Presumably, as an “innocent person”, you are not so well trained in violent, risky behavior as is your attacker.

It’s hard to imagine that a concern over vigilante gunners even enters the mind, (such as it is) of a maniacal killer, bent on creating havoc in a the local shopping mall, church, hospital, bank etc. If a vigilante gunman has ever thwarted such a killing, much less a personal attack, I’ve never heard of it. I can’t imagine what the odds must be of walking into a college classroom and finding armed vigilantes.

Of course a “bad guy” armed with a gun will fear such a real vigilante. In no way are such people so common that bad guys would expect to find “armed innocents”, (contradiction in terms), in your average groupings of such innocents.

If it’s really true that large numbers of otherwise innocent people, regularly use guns to extricate themselves from otherwise lethally violent situations as you claim, then I would have to agree with you. If you live in such an america, I wouldn’t even go to the movies much less a redneck bar unless I was armed to the hilt. For granny, who may have trouble aiming, I suggest hand grenades, effective deterrent even for the blind. In fact, given the weight and power, I think hand grenades trump guns. You can always pull the pin and threaten to be the craziest person in the room. Dare them to shoot you!

I find it telling that you don’t address the idea of the truly fearful packing a non lethal deterrent like pepper spray or tasers. It’s because you like the lethality of guns right? A truly innocent person may very well hesitate to pull a trigger on a lethal device. Such a person might hesitate much less to pull the trigger on a taser or pepper spray. What do your statistics have to say about such deterrents? Are gun bearing criminals concerned over vigilantes bearing 50,000 volt tasers? If not, why not? Given the easier access and non-lethality and lighter weight, I would expect such devices to be more in evidence, “among the great unwashed”, (not like you), but they probably are not.

Face it, your gun is just another solution chasing an application, a common design issue. If you have a hammer, everything looks like nails. Even you have bragged in this discussion wrt your prowess with crude weaponry. You are just expressing a fundamental raison d’être for ugly technology. I note that one of the features of the new stun guns and tasers is to infect the taser victim with microchips which identify them as the victim. Evidence the taser user would want on their side.

So your position Byron, is that everyone should go into public armed at all times so as to guaranty their security. You don’t see anything wrong with such a mindset? It’s perfectly healthy and rational to feel that you have to pack heat to feel secure? In the old west, you wore your six gun on your hip which is at least honest, and I suppose that the black hats thought twice before they shot up the white hats watering hole. I don’t know if you noticed, but times have changed. Today we have a sheriff in town. Civilized people don’t carry guns anymore. Just paranoid nutcases and true criminals.

Do you carry weapons? Do you know others who carry weapons. Have you ever used them? If not, why do you carry them? Would killing or wounding someone with your weapon for any reason, have an impact on your emotional life? Would you wonder if you could have secured yourself more rationally otherwise with less impact? Are you concerned with security, or are you just into guns?

Do you really think violent criminals aren’t effected by the threat that their targets might be armed!?

Since I am currently representing 5 different young men who are accused of shooting people, or at least at people, 5 young men who don’t know each other, who don’t even live in the same town, whose alleged crimes are wholly unrelated, I suppose I can speak with some authority on the reaction of violent criminals to the increased weaponization of society.

They get more guns, and better guns.

Here’s what they don’t do—consider the consequences of their actions. At all. So if they don’t worry about getting sent to prison for 2 life terms plus 60 years, I guarantee you they aren’t worried that some shoe salesman is going to try to pull out his Glock 9mm in the middle of their fight.

I’ve seen a lot of cases where people have been killed or maimed with a firearm, and I’ve seen a lot of young lives wasted by lengthy prison terms because they could do a lot of damage in a split second with a gun, but I honestly have never seen a case where a good citizen saved the day by producing a gun and quelling a violent dispute. Although some of those violent disputes have been fatal disputes thanks to guns stolen from would be good citizens.

“I am one of the few people I know who has argued in print that torture may be an ethical necessity in our war on terror.” Sam Harris October 17, 2005

I’ve seen a lot of cases where people have been killed or maimed with a firearm, and I’ve seen a lot of young lives wasted by lengthy prison terms because they could do a lot of damage in a split second with a gun, but I honestly have never seen a case where a good citizen saved the day by producing a gun and quelling a violent dispute. Although some of those violent disputes have been fatal disputes thanks to guns stolen from would be good citizens.

As a lawyer, would you expect to hear about the disputes that were quelled? Would you expect to see them on the news? It happens on occasion, but when an incident is avoided it doesn’t usually make good copy, and lawyers aren’t normally required.

Look into the sociological data, but be a good skeptic (just as if you were looking into the research on a controversial and highly politicized issue).

Byron

“We say, ‘Love your brother…’ We don’t say it really, but… Well we don’t literally say it. We don’t really, literally mean it. No, we don’t believe it either, but… But that message should be clear.”—David St. Hubbins

I’ve seen a lot of cases where people have been killed or maimed with a firearm, and I’ve seen a lot of young lives wasted by lengthy prison terms because they could do a lot of damage in a split second with a gun, but I honestly have never seen a case where a good citizen saved the day by producing a gun and quelling a violent dispute. Although some of those violent disputes have been fatal disputes thanks to guns stolen from would be good citizens.

As a lawyer, would you expect to hear about the disputes that were quelled? Would you expect to see them on the news? It happens on occasion, but when an incident is avoided it doesn’t usually make good copy, and lawyers aren’t normally required.

Look into the sociological data, but be a good skeptic (just as if you were looking into the research on a controversial and highly politicized issue).

Byron

I’m skeptical of the claims you are making because they sound unreal.

l. That a significant number of otherwise normal people now carry concealed handguns in public. What percentage of the public visiting our shopping malls, libraries, grocery stores, hospitals, college classrooms etc. or just walking down main street are armed. What number are you claiming?

2. How often are handguns used by otherwise innocent people to quell violence? I think that an event like a gun battle featuring vigilante commando but otherwise innocent shoe salesmen who successfully used their firepower to overwhelm evil predatory bad people would be all over the media. No reporter could turn down a story involving granny and her snub nose teaching the purse snatchers a lesson. How is such a story not “good copy”? Why wouldn’t lawyers be some of the very professionals, along with police, paramedics, jailers etc. that would necessarily follow up such an event?

Your claim is that it happens all the time. Can you point us to even one instance?

The ants are my friends, they’re blowing in the wind, the ants are blowing in the wind.

Do you really think violent criminals aren’t effected by the threat that their targets might be armed!?

Since I am currently representing 5 different young men who are accused of shooting people, or at least at people, 5 young men who don’t know each other, who don’t even live in the same town, whose alleged crimes are wholly unrelated, I suppose I can speak with some authority on the reaction of violent criminals to the increased weaponization of society.

They get more guns, and better guns.

teucher,

Yes, that’s what I would expect. But is it true society is becoming weaponized? How many people actually carry sidearms around in their daily life? Like so much that sometimes they accidently grab their gun and put it to their ear rather than their cell phone?

teuchter - 18 July 2009 04:44 PM

Here’s what they don’t do—consider the consequences of their actions. At all. So if they don’t worry about getting sent to prison for 2 life terms plus 60 years, I guarantee you they aren’t worried that some shoe salesman is going to try to pull out his Glock 9mm in the middle of their fight.

Yes, that’s what I would expect. After all not considering consequences is all part of being a bad guy right?

teuchter - 18 July 2009 04:44 PM

I’ve seen a lot of cases where people have been killed or maimed with a firearm, and I’ve seen a lot of young lives wasted by lengthy prison terms because they could do a lot of damage in a split second with a gun,.....

Yes, too much power and the consequences too severe to come from an act as simple as moving ones finger.

The ants are my friends, they’re blowing in the wind, the ants are blowing in the wind.